From the Bookshelf of The Reading Challenge Group…

Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

Michael J. Fox

Start date: August 1, 2014

Finish date: August 31, 2014

Discussion: Group Read Archive 2014-16

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Group Read Archive 2014-16

Genre Group Read (Humour) - December 2016 - You Are Not So Smart
By Allison , Quest Hound · 11 posts · 30 views

last updated Dec 28, 2016 04:05PM

Alternate Group Read (Classics) - December 2016 - Mansfield Park
By Allison , Quest Hound · 5 posts · 18 views

last updated Dec 04, 2016 09:34AM

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What Members Thought

Oct 24, 2014 Mickey rated it it was amazing

I probably should start off by stating that I have not read the first book in this series. I would have, but the copy at the library is out. A few weeks ago, I was thinking about disabilities in general and how difficult it is to navigate that subject socially or professionally. (My sister, who is profoundly hard of hearing, is going through nursing school and having a difficult time with being evaluated on things that she can’t control and looking towards the future when she will probably have I probably should start off by stating that I have not read the first book in this series. I would have, but the copy at the library is out. A few weeks ago, I was thinking about disabilities in general and how difficult it is to navigate that subject socially or professionally. (My sister, who is profoundly hard of hearing, is going through nursing school and having a difficult time with being evaluated on things that she can’t control and looking towards the future when she will probably have to tell everyone she comes in contact with at work that she has a disability.) I began thinking about how difficult it is to know when to share with others and what to say. Then I thought about Michael J. Fox and how he shared his disability after keeping it quiet for several years. I started watching YouTube videos of him discussing it and it made me curious to learn more about him and his life. I’ve read some biographies of people who have disabilities, notablyProzac Nationand Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism,but I think this book is the best I’ve read at communicating how it feels minute-by minute to deal with a disability. Fox does this with grace and humor. I don’t know if Fox had a ghostwriter, but the finished product sounds exactly like his stories in interviews: the same deprecating humor and sense of the ridiculous. There are so many excerpts that I think are worthy of sharing, but I chose this one where he talks about making ads:

In a situation like the ad shoot, when all I have to do is sit and read words from a teleprompter, a good chair is imperative. Rolling ball wheel, swivel type office models are a menace-they’d need a
Steadicam to track me as I careened around the room. My shifting and writhing would elicit complaining shrieks from a wood-and-canvas director’s chair. An armless parlor chair couldn’t contain me-I’d eventually spill sideways out of frame and onto the floor. A stool is out of the question, and a spinning bar stool is potential suicide. Give me a good, solid, hardwood dining room chair, like I had at the Waldorf, with sturdy legs and arms that feature easy-to-grip hand pommels. The actual seat, its features and contours, are irrelevant. In the throes of dyskinesias, my body’s energy doesn’t settle in a chair but surges to its five extremities-hands, feet, and head. Hands don’t rest on the pommels as much as throttle them, and feet hook around the bottom of chair legs, anchoring my shins and calves, which, were they boneless, would wrap around the chair legs like the asp of caduceus around its sword. With these four control factors in play, there’s little ass-to-seat cushion contact, so I would billow out like a sail, if not for the gyroscopic correction of the head-bobble. There’s only one answer for this. Sitting on my hands to rein in excess head movement. (This is the offer I had made the cameraman that, unbeknownst to me, sent my mother fleeing from the room.)
Fox discusses many aspects of his life: his spirituality, his family, his advocacy for stem cell research, and acting with PD. There are some celebrity stories, including one with the late Robin Williams. I would recommend this book to anyone with a disability or working with people with disabilities. It is a sweet,funny, and hopeful book.
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Dec 26, 2012 Dianne rated it it was amazing

Amusing, informative, full of hope, Michael speaks about managing his condition, the effect on family, his adjustments, limitations. I learnt so much about Michael, his wife, other people meets. I would recommend to anyone.

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